


Feelings

by Gobetti



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Superstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gobetti/pseuds/Gobetti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You two would admit, only if asked though, that your relationship is kind of... weird, to say the least. But neither one of you could care less.<br/>Still, constantly, people insist to remind you of the fact that Otto’s a robot, as if you didn’t know that already.<br/>As if you didn’t always know that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Superstuck AU, but specially by Jake English, aka [General Terror](http://generalterror.tumblr.com)'s profile on Tumblr.
> 
> It's my second time writing Jake (though the first time really doesn't count) and the first time writing brobot/Otto, so forgive me if it sucks, haha. I promise I'll get better.
> 
>  
> 
> \---

You two would admit, only if asked though, that your relationship is kind of... weird, to say the least. But neither one of you could care less.

I mean, what are relationships for, right? To choose the person with whom you’ll spend the rest of your life with, and let’s face it, one way or another, you would spend the rest of your life with Otto. And you know that either way, as a henchmen or a boyfriend/lover/beloved one, he’d be the happiest person on earth as long as he was by your side.

And that thought alone only makes you love him a little bit more every time.

Still, constantly, people insist to remind you of the fact that Otto’s a robot, as if you didn’t know that already. As if you didn’t always know that. At first, you really didn’t care, but when Vriska of all people decided to come to your lair solemnly to tell you that Otto will never have sexual desires towards you, that the carnal longing and aching he feel s for you is just a reflex of the human he was originally cloned from, you snapped.

“How can you possibly know that?” you ask her, your cheeks already flushing with both anger and embarrassment of what you’re about to say. “Are you the one currently in a relationship with Otto? Are you the one having sexual intercourse with him? Because if it is, well, then we all have a lot of explaining to do!”

“Stop being such a dickhead, English!!!!!!!!” she yells back, but her indignation is not enough to make you back off. Your back remains straight, your serious and angered expression untouched. “You know that’s not what I meant! What I meant is that you may think that he does feel these things, but they’re just instinct to him! Points of data! It’s all artificial, his heart is a fucking chunk of metal powered by uranium! He only has the _knowledge_ of what emotions are, and he knows how to react and mimic them! English, listen to me, _he is not alive!_ ”

Your arm is surprisingly swift, and though you don’t let it show, you are shocked by your own boldness. Vriska’s cheek is quickly turning red where the back of your gloved hand met her face, and now the tip of your ears burn with disgust of the person before you.

“Get out.”

She chuckles, placing a hand above her cheek.

“ _That’s_ your retort? _Get out_?” she whispers, still not looking at you, waving her hear slightly. “Why, English, it seems to me that you don’t really have a good enough reply to –“

“ ** _GET. OUT_**.”

Her smile quickly disappears. She straightens her back as well, drops her hand to the side of her body and looks directly at you, glaring threateningly, and while normally the action would make you shiver and curl into yourself with fear and reprehension, your boiling ire keeps you composed and as serious as you can muster.

“Stop being in denial, Jake. Open your fucking eyes.  This is _sick_.”

“I believe that whether this relationship is acceptable or not is none of your fucking business.”

“Relationship! Look at you, talking about the twisted thing you and that _tin can_ have as something _mutual_! You’re a fucking jackass, English. You’ll regret not giving a shit to what I’m saying, you know that, right?”

“Miss Serket, I think I told you to _get_. _The fuck_. _Out_.”

She buffs, places a hand on her hips and bares her fangs at you. “Oh, yeah? And who’s going to make me, _you_????????”

“No. Me.”

With this, she turns around, startled, and your own expression softens. Only now you realize that Otto is standing there behind you both, under the doorframe, holding a tray with two glasses of water, pointy glasses shining bright red instead of the usual orange.

“I believe my master has asked you to leave his lair, milady.” He says, voice as stoic as ever. “So if you’d be so kind, I will gladly escort you out.”

Vriska hesitates and glares at him, trying to figure out what to do.

“Or if you’d rather, I could simply _drag_ you out.”

“AUGH, F8NE!!!!!!!!”

And she turns around, her long, black hair lashing against your face.

“ _Mark my words, English_. You’re a stupid, _blind_ man. You _will_ regret this. And when you do, don’t come running to me for apologies.”

And before you can say anything back, she turns around and stomps her way past Otto and, by the sound of a banging door, out of your lair.

You take merely a second to close your eyes and sigh, finally relaxing your tense muscles; you slump your shoulders with relief, but when you open your eyes, there is no sign of Otto.

You don’t see him for the rest of the day.

 

\---

 

When you go to bed, you try, with no avail, to contact your henchmen. When he doesn’t answer any of your calls, you begin to worry.

Quickly, you call the next number in your list; Equius promptly answers you.

“Yes?”

“Equius, you know where Otto is?” you ask, desperately, clinging to your communicator for dear life, hoping that maybe, maybe—“

“As a matter of fact, I do. I am upgrading him right now, master English.”

For the second time that day you sigh with relief, when suddenly, something hits you. “…upgrading him? But wasn’t his upgrade supposed to be done only next week?”

The mechanic stops for a second. You can almost hear him wipe his forehead with his loyal cloth. “This is, well… a different upgrade, sir. He… well, he requested this to me earlier this afternoon, and politely asked me to refrain from telling you about it, unless, of course, you asked. This, I believe this is--”

“Equius.”

“Y-yes?”

You hesitate. Does this count as a request? If Otto didn’t want you to know about it, it’s probably because it’s something he’s ashamed of. You wave your head.

“Can I trust you not to do something that will make him change the way he act towards me?”

“No, no, that is absolutely not what I am doing, sir!” he stutters, nervously. “This is merely an upgrade, as I have previously mentioned. He did not request me anything that will change his current personality, memories, feelings or anything of the sort. It is something that will merely complement his being.”

“Feelings…” you whisper, worry churning in the pit of your stomach. You will hate yourself for this later, you just know. “He, he really does have feelings, doesn’t he, Equius.”

You can hear Equius taking a deep breath.

“Otto is made of both organic and mechanical parts.” He explains to you, calmly. “His brain may not have been made by nature, but by the hands of a mere, humble human, but it is the exact replica of a real brain. Though people may not believe if you told them this, Otto is just as capable of feelings as you and me.” A pause, and you sit down on your bed, sighing heavily. “…so something really did happen today.”

“Yes.” You whisper, closing your eyes guiltily. “You can say so.”

“I see. I suspected that was the case when Otto came to me with such peculiar requests.”

You wave your head. “By the way, I’d rather have Otto tell me what it is that he requested you. If that’s alright with you.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“Thank you, Equius. …look, I know that I shouldn’t need this kind of reassuring, but…”

“You don’t need to explain yourself, sir. It is okay, really.”

“Thank you. I’m… going to bed now. It was a rather long day. Try not to stay up too long.”

“I will stay up for as long as I am needed. Good night, sir.”

“Good night.”

You lay down on your bed, but the emptiness of it leaves you uneasy, and even with Equius’ double reassurance, you can’t help but replay everything Vriska told you in your head over and over again, like a bad movie with a terrible dialog. You grunt and hide your face in your pillow, trying to block everything out, unsuccessfully.

You don’t sleep well.

 

\---

 

In the next morning, you open your heavy eyelids slowly, and the first thing you see is Otto lying beside you. His eyes are also closed, and his breathing – wait, _breathing_? Since when does he have lungs? And oh my god, is he… _sleeping_?

“Otto…?”

He doesn’t answer. You try calling him again, this time placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Otto?”

He still doesn’t move an inch, and you start to worry.

“Otto.” You call out, shaking him a bit. “Otto, answer me, Otto.”

Slowly, you start hearing the hum of the cogs in his head working again, and he opens his eyes, staring right into yours. You sigh, chuckling.

“Goodness! You got me real scared, pal! Don’t you scare me like that again, I don’t think my heart will be able to take it.”

Otto still doesn’t react properly. He keeps staring at you, eyes half-open, lips parted. Your heart starts thumping faster again.

“Otto? W-what’s wrong, buddy?”

“…nothing.” He whispers, blinking a few times. “I just feel… unusually tired.”

“Oh. Well, we usually feel that way when we wake up in the morning.” You tell him, smiling again. “Is that what the upgrade you asked Equius was about? Are you able to sleep now?”

Otto nods, shifting until he is sitting upright. You follow him, scooting closer so you can touch the side of his arm.

“Yes… and no. The upgrade Equius installed on me changed a few things. The ability to sleep was merely one of them. He had that one laying around for quite some time now, but I was never interested in it. Never saw a point in sleeping.” He reaches for his back with his hand, scraping the metal there. “Equius gave me new batteries. Now they’ll recharge on their own whenever I sleep; I can also connect myself to a power source if I don’t want to go to sleep, but… sleeping feels nice. I guess.”

“Oh, that’s really cool!” you say, excitedly. “What else did he upgrade?”

“My feelings.”

You freeze.

“I-I’m sorry?”

“My feelings.” He repeats, turning to face you. “I asked him to upgrade the part of my brain that was suppressing some of the human instincts present both in the human nature and in Strider’s personality.”

“Okay, back up, back up. I don’t think I get it. Care to explain?”

Otto sighs, and even to him, the motion seems weird, and so he stops. Your henchman hesitates for a second, straightens his back, and stares at his folded legs.

“When Equius built my brain, he suppressed the part of Strider’s personality and of the human nature that would not be useful for a robotic henchman. One of these parts was the part that controlled romantic feelings.”

You don’t know what to say. What does it means? Does this means that Vriska was right? That Otto was faking everything so far? And right then he seems to read your mind, so he turns to face you, shiny orange eyes staring intensively into green ones.

“But he didn’t suppress the part that controlled friendship, and loyalty. These things were obviously useful when looking for a loyal assistant. With friendship came affection, and with loyalty came companionship. When my heart beat for the first time, I knew you were my master, and I knew it was you who I had to serve, though I never had the obligation to become your friend. Your personality was what captivated me, so friendship came naturally to us, and when our friendship was so strong that I couldn’t help feeling exceedingly happy whenever I was merely around you, I began questioning just how strong and/or platonic my affection towards you was.”

He looked down, caught your hand in his and intertwined your fingers together.

“One night, I sat on the edge of your bed while you slept, and thought pretty hard about my feelings for you. That night, something snapped inside my brain, I even felt it when it did so. A small fraction of the part of my brain that was locked away, dormant, exactly the part that controls my romantic feelings, was automatically unleashed. It was a very, very small fraction, but…” he squeezed your hand, visibly twitching, bowing his head down. “…but the feelings unleashed inside of me were already so nice, so overwhelming, it was all it took. I felt something different. Something _amazing_. It was like my heart had skipped a beat. I knew I loved you then.”

“So, when you said that Equius upgraded your feelings… what did you mean by that?”

Otto pauses, collecting the words, and looks back at you. “Think of a brain as a fucking big house, with tons of rooms. Each room keeps a different emotion or feeling inside, like pain, happiness, fear, anger, pleasure, and so on. In a human’s brain, all the rooms are connected and accessible whenever they feel like it; in my case, they all have these huge ass doors, so I can lock away any of these fuckers whenever I need or feel like it.” He looks at you, and you nod. He nods back, looks down, and continues. “Well… before there was just a crack open in the door of the room that storages romantic feelings in my brain, and now it’s wide open, and… I’m really fucking scared.”

You can barely see it, but slowly Otto starts shaking. Your heart nearly falls to the pit of your stomach, and you wrap your arm around his shoulders, pulling him towards you.

“Hey, hey, hey, shh, it’s okay. Come on, come here.” You whisper, trying to soothe him, but it comes out as if you were trying to comfort a baby. Otto doesn’t seem to mind though, because he comes closer as well, throwing his arms around you and hugging you tightly. You hug him back.

“What are you afraid of? Didn’t you want this?”

“Yes, but…” he shivers, and clings to the fabric of your pajamas, scratching your back when doing so. “My _heart_. My heart, it’s thumping so loudly, it’s aching, I can even hear it in my eardrums, my blood, my blood feels, it feels like it’s fucking boiling whenever I think of you, and I get lightheaded, and dizzy, and, and I, I never felt these things before, I think something went wrong, this can’t be right, this isn’t right, but… what…”

“Otto.” You laugh in his ear, hugging him even tighter, flushing with embarrassment and happiness. “Shh, Otto, it’s okay, it’s alright.You’re just in love.”

Otto stops his rant and exhales, resting his forehead against your shoulder, hugging you a bit tighter as well.

“Oh. Okay.”

He actually sounds a little bit surprised, and it’s probably the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.

You have to remember to thank Equius later.

 

\---

 

You can see the changes Equius’ upgrade had in Otto.

For starters, he’s a bit clingier to you. Though he acts cool and professional whenever you two go out to do some crime, he seems to take it a lot more personally whenever a superhero tries to even lay a finger on you, his bright smile is a lot more frequent now whenever you two are alone, and he constantly has the urge to hug you for no reason whatsoever. None of these things are bad, really.

But the sex.

Holy fucking dickens, the sex.

In the beginning you had your doubts about if this relationship would work because of, well… Otto’s limitations when it came to physical intimacy. He wasn’t soft and warm, like a human; he was cold and tough; _unbendable_. You knew he could feel pain, but you always wondered if he could feel pleasure whenever you touched him, because normally he would keep his deadpan expression all the way through it, only furrowing his brows when he was reaching an orgasm.

You really have no doubts now.

Now, when the tip of your fingers practically brush over his chest teasingly, you see his eyelids flutter, his metal grip on you tightening to the point of almost hurting, and when you make a bold move and decide to lick the loops and the joints of his metal neck, you hear him gasp and moan softly.

“Was this part of the upgrade Equius gave you?” You ask him, moving slowly to his shoulder, planting languid, wet kisses over the smooth threshold. He hesitates and nods.

“Yes. Yes, I… I asked him to give me more nervous endings in my body, and to make the preexistent ones more sensitive to the touch. My, my nervous system is now, _ah_ , i-identical to a human’s.”

“Why wasn’t it before?” you ask him, kissing his cheek softly, then the other, and finally his nose.

“More sensibility…” he whispers, leaning in to kiss you in the lips. You happily comply, resting both hands on his shoulders. He quickly pulls back to continue speaking, and you smile at how helpless he looks then. “means more pleasure, but it also means more pain. For a robot that needs to protect an evil villain, lack of over sensibility is certainly useful.”

For a second, you think of asking him why he decided to change that about him, because, really, not being able to feel practically anything when you get kicked in the guts or when you break or twist a limb are certainly pretty neat abilities, but instead you settle with sliding your hands down his sides, resting one of them on the cup that covers his metallic erection and keeping the other over his left hip.

Otto inhales deeply –breathing was yet another (wonderful) part of his update, one that he is still slowly getting used to – and puts his hands on your waist, watching your wandering hand carefully as you rub the heel of your palm over the smooth, cold metal. When one of your fingers reaches down between his legs as you toy with the clip that opens the cup, Otto closes his eyes and rests his forehead against your chest.

“P-please…” he whispers, trying to move closer still, and you happily comply, putting your hand over his behind and pulling him as close as possible to you. “I… Jake, I… _please_ , I, I _need_ you.”

“My god, I need you more, Otto.” You whisper onto his ear, kissing him sweetly on the side of his head as you both hear the _clack_ of the clip being open. The cup retracts inside his body, and the warmer part of Otto’s body unfolds itself and presses against your thigh. He squeezes your sides, moans, and almost literally melts under your touch. You smile.

“I need you so much more.”

And when you two make love – it sounds so corny when you say it, but you really can’t think of any other way to call what you two do in the privacy of closed doors – he is as gentle as he has always been, but there’s this longing now, this aching for you that wasn’t there before in such intensity. He still wanted you, he really did, and you knew that by the way he touched you then, but it’s as if someone took that need and multiplied it by a hundred times. He’s gentle, he’s kind, caring, but now he’s that much more passionate about it.

After sex, he describes it to you as waking up from a dream. He says that it’s as if he was trapped inside his body, but didn’t even know it until he felt the sudden urge to get out. He confessed to you that he never _ever_ wants to go back to the way he was before, and you can’t help but agree that you wouldn’t have it any other way either.

When you wake up the next morning, as usual, Otto is laying there next to you, but now he is sleeping peacefully, and it’s oh so beautiful. It’s also odd to watch a robot sleep, but the way his chest plates expand and retract with the slow motion of his artificial lungs, lips half parted and expression serene like that, you have to remind yourself every once in a while that he is, in fact, a robot.

You remember Vriska’s words, of how everything in him is unnatural, artificial; of how he is not alive. You know now that her intentions weren’t cruel, that she was just trying to prevent you from hurting yourself, but still...

You knew she wasn't right, you know that she still isn't, and that she never will be.

You reach forward, caress his closed eyelids with your thumb, and smile.

Otto may be a robot, but he is very much alive.


End file.
